


Stay With Me

by the_painless_moustache



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Graphic Violence, M/M, Stiles comes a little unhinged, You're probably going to cry, dealing with death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 21:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3825766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_painless_moustache/pseuds/the_painless_moustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows it’s childish to avoid their calls. Knows it’s stupid to blame any of them for this. But he doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to hear them telling him <i>it’ll be okay</i> because as far as he’s concerned, it won’t be. Derek was something good, something that made him <i>better</i>.<br/>It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> *rises out of the darkness and stabs you with this story*  
> Alternate Title: 4,000 words of Agony

He knows it’s childish to avoid their calls. Knows it’s stupid to blame any of them for this. But he doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to hear them telling him _it’ll be okay_ because as far as he’s concerned, it won’t be. Derek was something good, something that made him _better_.

 It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

 He could’ve handled a break-up. Could’ve taken Derek telling him that it wasn’t working, because Stiles was difficult to work with. Difficult to be with. But it _had_ been working, they’d been _happy_ , and it _wasn’t supposed to happen like this_.

 "Stiles."

 "Go away."

 "Stiles, you need—"

 Stiles turns on his father. "I need _what?_ I need a hug? I need to talk to them? It’s been _hours_. It took you _years_."

 His dad flinches. Stiles feels tears well up in his throat. "Stiles, I’m not here to tell you to stop hurting."

 Stiles turns back towards his window. Some part of him hopes that…that if he just waits long enough…

 "Stiles."

 "Go away." he whispers. "Please."

 He does.

 He still hasn’t showered. That’s probably what his dad was going to say. _You need to shower and eat_. Like he’s back from lacrosse practice. Like they hadn’t pried him away from Derek, like Derek was okay and alive and not gone. Not dead.

 Dead.

 Stiles looks at his arms, at the black blood on them. At the red blood mixed in with it. He’s filthy. He really should shower, but this is his last piece of Derek. He can’t…just not yet. He looks back at the window.

***

 Scott doesn’t say anything the next morning. Just pulls him up from his bed and strips him, setting him in the tub and turning the showerhead on. Stiles flinches when the cold water hits him, but it heats up soon enough, and Scott sits there with him. Scrubs the blood off his arms, off his neck. Out of his hair. Scott still doesn’t say anything.

 Stiles tries not to think. He tries not to see this as the last piece of Derek he’ll ever get because if he thinks about that then he’ll start crying. He’ll start cracking, and he can’t do that right now. He can’t afford to. Scott turns the water off and pulls him up, handing him a towel. He leaves the room and Stiles dries himself off. When Scott comes back with clothes, he’s got it around his hips and he’s staring at his neck in the mirror.

 "He bit me." Stiles mumbles, pressing against the wound. It’s deeper than he’d thought.

 "He was a beta. It’s not going to do anything." Scott assures him.

 Somehow that makes it worse. Stiles knows why Derek bit him, and it wasn’t to somehow continue the Hale line. It wasn’t about anything but them, about how Stiles always told him it was okay when his fangs came out. How it didn’t scare him anymore, how Derek was just as beautiful with them as he was without. Derek was biting him because he’d always wanted to and he’d never managed the courage.

 "Stiles?"

 He turns and blinks away the blurriness, tries to focus on Scott. "I…"

 Scott sets his mouth in a firm line. "Stiles, you’ve just got to get through today. Start with that, okay?"

 It was the best he could do.

***

 Scott makes him get dressed and takes him to the preserve because no one can bear to bring themselves to go to Derek’s loft. Least of all Stiles. They stand around the nemeton—the stupid fucking stump—and stare at it quietly. Stiles doesn’t know why they’re here until Lydia shows up with Deaton in tow. "He says there’s a way."

 Stiles looks up at them, hoping to feign interest, but he can’t be bothered.

 Kira grabs his arm, looping them together reassuringly. "What way?"

 Deaton looks uncomfortable, unsure. It makes Stiles feel worse than he already does. "It won’t be pleasant. He may not…be himself. It’s hard to say for sure. The only time I’ve seen it work was with Peter, and he’s never been particularly sane, so the affects are—"

 "No."

 Everyone turns, surprised. Stiles swallows and says it again. "No."

 Kira speaks first, softly. "Stiles, we’re trying—"

 "I know what you’re trying to do. I’m telling you you can’t do it."

 "Stiles—" Lydia tries again

 " _I said no_. Don’t I get any fucking say in this?"

 Everyone’s extraordinarily silent. Scott takes his shoulder. "If you’re sure."

 Stiles looks at him, because he’s _not_ sure. But he doesn’t want Derek coming back as anything less than what he was, and he doesn’t want Derek coming back and being pissed off because everything comes with a price. A high price. "He wouldn’t be him." he finally settles on. "And he wouldn’t want it. He’d want…" Stiles stops, turns and looks at the tree.

 Everyone waits for him to continue, but he just leaves.

 When he comes back, they’re still there, some sitting on the tree, some just standing around. They all look solemn and they’re discussing something but Stiles doesn’t care what. He just comes forward fast and swings the ax.

 Lydia screams. Not a loud banshee scream but a regular oh-shit-there’s-an-ax scream. Stiles sinks it firmly into the trunk and pulls it out just as easily. He doesn’t remember becoming this strong. He doesn’t care to think about it now. He just swings again.

  Deaton’s first to speak. "Stiles, you’re not doing anything to—"

 Stiles whips around. "The only reason I’m not burning this thing at the _root_ is because it would kill Scott."

 "And you." Scott adds, frowning.

 Stiles laughs, turning and landing the ax with so much force the wood splits, a loud crack wringing out. He does it until Scott stops him, taking the ax from him and tossing it aside. He gathers Stiles—who’s started crying, when did that happen?—into his arms and holds him. "It’s gonna be okay." he mumbles into Stiles’ shoulder. "It’s gonna be okay, I promise."

 Stiles doesn’t argue because it’s pointless to tell him otherwise.

***

 They have a funeral.

 Stiles doesn’t go. He can’t bring himself to do it. He gets up, showers, gets dressed in his suit, and then just sits. For hours. Until his dad comes and sits next to him. "It rained." he informs him. Stiles looks out the window, seeing the trees dripping. His dad clears his throat. "Um, Scott...Scott wanted you to have these, I guess."

 Stiles looks at the box his dad’s holding out. It’s small, wooden, has Derek’s triskelion tattoo carved on top like his mother’s claws did. He swallows and opens it, sees the five claws sitting out like little gems. He slams it shut. "Why?"

 "Something about being able to see him when you’re ready. I didn’t ask for specifics, really. Figured the less I knew the better."

 Stiles sets it aside without looking at it again.

 "We buried him at the Hale house, you know. Just to…just so he was there."

 "Did Peter come?"

 "No. No one’s seen him since."

 Stiles’ lip twitches. "You’ll keep an eye out for him?"

 His dad’s quiet for a long time, then he nods. "Yeah, I will."

***

 Peter comes back six months later. He goes to the Hale house, and that’s where Stiles finds him, standing over Derek’s grave, which is marked with a neat sprig of wolfsbane. Peter doesn’t look at him, but he speaks "I know you hate me."

 "Good. Less words to waste." Stiles says, twirling his knife easily. He’s had time to practice. Time and patience.

 "If it makes you…if it’s any consolation, I didn’t want him to die."

 Stiles snarls "You _ripped out his heart_."

 "I didn’t say I didn’t _plan_ for him to die." Peter snaps, turning on him, his eyes flashing blue. "I said I didn’t _want_ him to."

 "You’re disgusting."

 Peter laughs, turning back to the wolfsbane. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. "You won’t kill me, Stiles." he sighs. "You don’t have it in you. You’re not a killer. You’re a fighter, but not a killer."

 "I think you’re underestimating me."

 Peter shakes his head. "I’m not. Derek knew that about you. Knew when it came down to it, you wouldn’t kill anything. It’s why he never changed you when he was an alpha. He could’ve. Could’ve recruited you to his pack, but he didn’t. Ever wonder why?" Peter glances at him. "It’s because you’re not built for killing."

 The knife goes through his throat without any remorse. Stiles walks over and pulls it out, watching Peter gurgle up his own blood, shock clear on his face as his throat tries to heal. He leans down, eases the knife back into him. "I’m not a lot of things." Stiles tells him. "I’m not weak. I’m not helpless. And you're right. I'm not a killer. I am, however, supremely pissed and vengeful. You took someone I love away from me." Stiles twists the knife. Peter gushes blood. "This is just what you deserve."

***

 Scott doesn’t mention how Stiles smells, but Stiles knows he can tell. They found Peter’s body—or its pieces, anyway—but no one had seemed surprised. They bury his ashes at the Hale house, too, but it’s much less meaningful. They don’t mark the grave, don’t even give him a proper ceremony. Scott does it—he’s the alpha, after all—and after he claps Stiles on the shoulder and gives him a look that says _I understand but it wasn’t right_.

 Stiles visits Derek a lot more after that. He sits and stares at the wolfsbane, remembering years ago how he’d dug up Derek’s sister following the same marker. He brings his knife, spins it on his fingers. Killing Peter—torturing Peter—had felt _good_. Now he just felt empty. There was nothing left to hold onto. Not the anger, or the guilt. He knows, from when he was a kid, that this is probably the depression stage of his grieving, but it doesn’t _feel_ like grieving. It feels like waiting. But Stiles doesn’t know for what.

 Lydia figures it out for him, slamming into his room one evening and grabbing the box off his nightstand. He hadn’t touched it since his dad gave it to him, but now he takes it like she’s trying to steal it, or break it. This is _his_ , and she can’t have it.

 "Do you want to hear what he has to say or not?" she demands.

 And it’s so nice to have someone else be angry. Someone to shove at him even though he feels like he’s going to fall apart. So he hands her the box and she opens it to put her ear over them.

 Then she starts laughing. She laughs until she cries and then she sets the box down and hugs him. "God, he loved you." she mumbles. "He loved you so much, Stiles."

 Stiles hangs onto her, throat on fire. "What did—what—"

 She shakes her head. "You need to hear it. You need to see him."

 He shakes his head back at her, burrowing into her neck. "Lydia, I can’t. I can’t, you…you have to tell me, please, I can’t do this. I can’t do this without him. I can’t, oh god…"

 She stays the night, holding him while he cries.

***

 Scott does it. He sinks Derek’s claws into his fingers and then into Stiles’ spine. When Stiles opens his eyes, he’s in his bedroom and there he is, sitting and reading one of Stiles’ comic books and it’s so _fucking normal_. He just stares for a long time until Derek looks up and grins. "It’s okay."

 He breaks, shaking his head. "No. It’s not. It’s not, I should’ve—I could’ve _saved you_. I could’ve—"

 Derek stands and grabs him, and he’s _alive._ He’s warm and safe and in Stiles’ arms and he’s not ever letting go. If he has to drag him out of here with him, if he has to die with Derek’s claws in his neck he will, because this…he needs this. He needs him.

 "You’re going to be okay."

 "I’m not." Stiles argues, clinging tighter. "Derek, I’m not okay. I’m _not_. I need you. You have to…I can’t do this. Not without you, please."

 "Stiles," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to his hair. "Stiles, breathe."

 "Derek, you have to come back. You have to, I can’t do this. Please."

 "You know what my favorite thing about you is?"

 Stiles shakes his head, not because he doesn’t know but because he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear Derek say it again because it isn’t true. Not anymore. Not without him.

 "You’re so strong. You’re so strong, Stiles, and you always were. You always will be."

 "No." Stiles spits. "No, I’m not. I don’t want to be. Derek, I don’t _want this_."

 Derek laughs. It’s sad, but Stiles clings to it. "I don’t either."

 "You can’t make me do this alone."

 "Stiles, look at me."

 And Stiles does. He looks alive. He looks real, and Stiles knows logically this is just some form of Derek’s consciousness he left behind and this isn’t him but it _feels_ like it is, so Stiles leans up and kisses him just to feel it again. Nearly a year and he didn’t realize he missed it so much. He was so busy missing everything else.

 "Stiles, I need you to listen, okay?"

 He nods, squeezing his eyes closed.

 "You have to go to my loft, and you have to find it. Okay? Find it and just…just remember I love you." He kisses him, too short, too cold. "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

 Stiles wakes up crying.

***

 It takes him a full month to follow Derek’s word. No one’s changed anything. It’s dusty, and dark, and the windows are dirtier than Stiles’ remembers, but it’s still Derek’s. Stiles stands in the doorway for a long time, and then wanders towards the table in the center of the room, hoping for some sort of explanation on whatever _it_ is.

 There’s nothing there, so Stiles hunts the entire apartment. He looks under the beds and the couch cushions, he goes through Derek’s drawers—and gets held up because there’s still things of _his_ in there and that hurts more than anything—and he even hunts through the fridge.

 He lays on the bed, completely prepared to just never leave, to just starve to death in this bed because he can still smell Derek on the sheets if he tries hard enough. If he works for it. When he closes his eyes, he thinks maybe he could just sleep here forever. Just dream of the nights he’d spent here before and the nights he’d planned on spending here after.

 Instead, the alarm sounds, and he leaps up to either defend this place or die trying.

 Cora bursts in and slams the alarm off, looking ready to burst into tears. Stiles slumps, but doesn’t relax. He can feel the utter crushing sadness rolling off her in waves. He barely twitches his arms to hold them open and she’s in them, sobbing into his shoulder and yelling at him for not protecting her brother and how could he and every other thing Stiles had been telling himself for months.

 They both fall asleep on his bed.

***

 "How’d you find out?"

 Cora stares into her coffee, frowning like she’s confused by it. "My pack told me. My…after the fire, that’s where I ended up and they took care of me. They were my pack. Even when I tried it with Derek, it just didn’t feel right anymore." She pauses here, taps her fingers on the mug. "They heard Peter had been missing, and that lead to the discovery that Derek was dead."

 Stiles nods slowly, eyes flicking down to her fingers. They’re still tapping. "We would’ve told you, but we didn’t…he never said. He never told us where you were. He said he was protecting you."

 "There are people up here who don’t like my pack as much as I do."

 Stiles nods like he understands, but he doesn’t. Her fingers are still tapping. He can’t stop watching them. It’s like he recognizes it, like it’s the beat of a song he hasn’t heard in a long time and can’t quite remember.

 "Where did you put him?" she asks quietly.

 "The house. Peter’s there, too, but his was…" He can’t stop the nasty smirk that comes onto his face. "Less formal."

 "Peter killed him." Cora guesses, but it doesn’t sound like she’s surprised. Stiles nods. "And you killed Peter."

 Stiles grabs her fingers, because he _needs_ them to stop. She jerks back, but he holds fast. "Sorry, just…you’re tapping and…"

 She frowns at him. "Stiles."

 He pulls his hand away. "Don’t do that. Please."

 She stops.

***

 He moves into Derek’s loft a week later. He asks Scott for his opinion, if he thought it was strange, but Scott seemed oddly pleased with the idea. Said it felt right to him. So Stiles did. Cora stays with him for awhile, dragging her hands over Derek’s things and staring at them like she’s confused by their presence. Stiles makes himself box up most of his clothes, but he leaves just about everything else where it is.

 When Cora finally decides to go back to her pack, she hands him a key. "He gave this to me before he left." she says. "Told me to keep it in case I ever wanted to come back."

 Stiles looks up at her, sees the resolve in her eyes. He nods and closes his fingers around it. "I don’t blame you."

 Her mouth quirks up in a tired smile. "I wouldn’t care if you did."

 Stiles lays the key on the table, and it stays there for a long time. He settles in during the following months, keeps himself busy working with Deaton on magic and working with his dad. He starts to feel like a person again, not just the shell of one. He allows himself to hang pictures of the pack around the loft, allows himself to look at Derek’s face without feeling like someone took his lungs away from him. He doesn’t date. Doesn’t think about dating. No one even tries to set him up, because he’s finally _content_ and they don’t want to disturb it.

 He comes home on a Thursday and everything feels wrong. The way the place is set up is not for him. It’s for Derek, and he misses him still, but it’s wrong. So he starts shoving furniture this way and that until he’s satisfied. He wants the bed where it is, but he’s got to change the sheets because it’s just sad now. So he starts pulling them loose. One rough tug sends the mattress onto the floor, and he sighs before he sees it.

 He calls Scott and makes him put him under.

 The moment he opens his eyes, they settle on Derek and he starts yelling. "You fucking _asshole_. You can’t…you’re not supposed to _do this!_ "

 Derek grins behind the comic book. He looks exactly like he did before. It pisses Stiles off more, so he rips the comic book out of his hands and throws it away. "Why didn’t you ask me before?"

 Derek looks at him, smirking. It looks sad. "I _was_ going to ask you before Peter came back to town."

 "You should’ve asked me sooner." Stiles chokes.

 "I could ask you now, if you want."

 Stiles grinds his teeth. "You’re an asshole."

 "I know."

 "I loved you. I _love you_."

 "I know."

 "You…you weren’t supposed to leave me."

 He nods sadly, swinging so he’s got a leg on either side of Stiles. Stiles stares down at him, but he’s starting to blur with tears. Derek grabs his hips. "I know."

 "We were supposed to grow old and have kids and rebuild your house and your pack and…and not _die_." Stiles jolts with the word, because it’s…it’s the first time he’s said it since that first night. He’d carefully avoided the word in reference to Derek, like it would change something. But now he can say it. It hurts, but he can say it.

 Derek’s smiling up at him. It's the saddest smile Stiles has ever seen. "I know. I'm sorry."

 Stiles pulls out of it and Scott’s eyeing him warily. He picks up a pad of gauze and presses it over his neck. "What?"

 "You said something."

 Stiles stills. "What did I say?"

 "You said ‘I forgive you.’"

***

 Stiles wears the key around his neck. He buries the claws next to the wolfbane, only a few feet deep so he can find it again if he needs to, but far enough away to feel like closure. He feels almost normal after that. Sometimes he’ll get pulled under, sinking into a sadness that feels like it will last forever but only lasts for a few hours or a day. Mostly, he’s fine. He’s the best man at Scott and Kira’s wedding, he plays with their kids, he becomes a deputy.

 Sometimes, Scott’s daughters will point to pictures and ask about Derek. Stiles will tickle them into submission and tell them stories about the big bad alpha werewolf and how he wasn’t big or bad but actually quite cuddly. He tells them the things that Derek would roll his eyes at and kiss him for. The first time they ask what happened to him, he freezes up. Scott moves to distract them, to change the subject, because even the three girls can tell something’s not right, but Stiles gives them a sad smile and says "He died."

 Sometimes Stiles likes to imagine what would’ve happened if he and Derek had kids. Would they look like Derek or Stiles? Would they adopt? Use a donor? Some nights he allows himself to imagine a little boy with Hale green eyes sets into a puffy Stilinski face. Mostly he tries not to think about it. His dad seems satisfied enough with Scott’s kids, at least, which helps alleviate Stiles' guilt is not having his own kids.

 He goes out to the house and he sits and tells the—now large—cluster of wolfsbane about Holly's dance recital and the kid who'd tried to talk his way around him to get out of a parking ticket. Some days he has nothing to say, but he goes out anyway. Some days he has everything to say, but on those days he just sits in silence because he has a hard enough time just breathing right.

 He loses time less often now, though sometimes it still happens. He still hurts, he still misses him, and there are days he can't wait to get to the end of it all. But mostly he spends time with his friends and laughs and lives. Mostly, he's okay.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm SORRY  
> You can yell at me via my [tumblr](http://www.thepainlessmoustache.tumblr.com)


End file.
